John Pursely, owner of Pursley Paving, a small sourthern Ontario company established in 1947, believes he has found a new competitive edge to help him win bids on larger contracts in the region.

Pursely was among the first paving contractors to test out the new V-Floor asphalt trailer introduced recently by Titan Trailers Inc., of Delhi, Ontario. He put it to work this past fall and now looks forward to saving costs with the unique unloader system in the coming year.

According to Pursely, the new 48-foot 5-axle trailer pays off for pavers by providing excellent load control, improved safety, bigger payloads and faster duty cycles than traditional dump trailers.

Titan introduced the world's first V-Floor trailer in 2003, adapting the steel-slatted live floor system from Keith Walking Floor to Titan's aluminum body Thinwall trailers for extreme-duty applications.

Combining durability, high bulk capacity and a level loading floor, the Titan V-Floor trailers have received an enthusiastic welcome from scrap metal haulers and in mining and forestry applications. The newest version of the V-Floor trailer has been modified to handle the high heat of hot mix and to simplify clean-out. The height of the trailer was also shortened to reduce its weight and to help it retain heat in the asphalt.

Because the V-Floor unloads without dumping, says Pursely, the trailer delivers a better result for less cost.

"On larger projects, you'll see trucks dumping into a buggy to remix the asphalt before it feeds into the paver," Pursely says. "With the V-Floor unloader, you don't get segregation in the material. The asphalt walks off evenly. It drops maybe a foot of the load at a time, and you get a complete cross-section of the material. The hot mix basically remixes as it falls into the paver's hopper."

Pursely also appreciates the flow control and safety the trailer provides by unloading without having to elevate the body.

"With a dump body, once the load starts, it's coming," Pursely explains. "The V-Floor lets you control the flow rate completely. It comes with a remote control, so you could even run the unloader from the paver. You could unload 40 tons in 10 minutes if you wanted to, so it will keep up with any paver.

"The V-Floor trailer can also drive along on the shoulders of the road, where the slope might be too steep for a dump to raise a full load without tipping," he continues. "And when you're working around bridges or overhead wires, you don't need an extra flagman on the job because there's no danger cutting any lines."

Fewer and faster duty cycles
The strong but light extruded aluminum sidewalls and coupler plate of Titan's patented Thinwall body allow significantly larger payloads than steel dumps, while the V-Floor design eliminates the weight of the dump's subframe.

With the larger payloads and the efficiency of the Titan trailer, Pursely predicts that by using one of these trailers, he could have completed more shifts on his paver with fewer trucks.

"If you have fewer trucks doing the same work in every shift, by the end of the season, that's a huge competitive edge," he notes. "Plus, with its lighter weight, you save on fuel for the return side of every duty cycle. For some of the bigger jobs I did last summer, I could have blown my competition right out of the water if I'd had this trailer."

Titan also equips its asphalt trailer with a new V-Plow clean system, another innovation that follows the load off and cleans up behind automatically, saving even more time between cycles. "I bet a guy couldn't sweep up a handful of material from what was left inside," says Pursely. "This saves maybe a half-hour a day, and could add up to $1,000 savings a month all on its own."

Titan President and founder Mike Kloepfer says he is very pleased with the response his new trailer is getting from pavers, and expects that more advantages will prove out as they go into more widespread service.